Has anyone ever created a "photo recon" effect?

[FlyingsCool]

Hi,

I've searched but haven't found anything. FSX is pretty configurable. Has anyone ever figured out how to take pictures from a flying airplane? I'm imagining an effect that could use this to create a configurable photo recon system for an aircraft for using in a mission. Does anything like this exist?

I have no idea what it's like to run a photo mission in a typical photo reconnaissance plane of say WWII or the Korean War, or Vietnam; what the responsibilities of the pilot are and what he does and sees or how the equipment works...

Would anyone else find this interesting? I'm imagining photos being saved to disk, and you can judge how well you approach the target and the quality of the pictures... etc.

Seems like it would be a cool thing to me.

[fsafranek]

Alphasim had it on some of their recon aircraft releases.
This was going back as far as FS9 but probably still works in FSX.

The Royal French Navy Etendard IVP had a camera mode.

[Duckie]

Hi,

I have no idea what it's like to run a photo mission in a typical photo reconnaissance plane of say WWII or the Korean War, or Vietnam; what the responsibilities of the pilot are and what he does and sees or how the equipment works...

I did it for 6 years in OV-1 Mohawks. IR, Photo, and SLAR. 1968-74. The pilot was the driver and I was the systems operator (TO).

The B model used the KA-76 camera internal belly mounted with 5 positions, L & R oblique w/2 positions 15 and 30 degrees, and 90 degrees vertical. Photo flare pod mounted atop the port wing along the wing root aft. Flare pod held 104 KA-30 (?) aerial photo flares but we never loaded that many. These flares where parachute flares and turned night into day at low altitude, blinded the pilot (and me too!) and also lit up the aircraft!

The C model carried both the KA-76 belly camera and the KA-60 panoramic nose camera. The 60 could shot a 180 degree pan exposure on wide format color film. The detail was incredible. The C used a Photo strobe pod mounted on the port outboard pylon outboard of the wing tank. The flare pod had unlimited flashes, coordinated one per frame, didn't affect the pilots vision and only lit up the aircraft for less than 1 second.

The camera controls were coordinated with aircraft ground speed and AGL. Flares and strobes were also coordinated through the camera control system once the frame rate was established. The controls allowed automatic exposures or singles all controlled by the TO. Usually a photo tech met the aircraft at the parking stand and retrieved the cassettes to take to the photo trailer. Once the film was developed the aircraft crew would debrief with intel with light tables and vertical stereo viewers. The exposures were automatically set to provide overlapping frames for stero/3D analysis.

Steve

[johnwillimas2]

The Royal French Navy Etendard IVP had a camera mode.

Indeed it does. It allows for vertical, and forward facing shots and seems to work fine. What you get is the FS camera view. No stereo pairs, mind!

[johnwillimas2]

20,000 feet over London. This what the Etendard's vertical camera gives you....

[William Njurmi]

Justflight Canberra?

[expat]

FS9 AS RA-5C had a downward camera "view" that you could take a screenie with.

[Kekelekou]

The SimSkunkWorks (R)F-104G does feature a panel to set the camera settings and take screenshots as described here :

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BiljDJ71dxs

But the best recce-related eye-candy is the GlowingHeat A-12 which features a functional driftsight (in P3Dv3) I don’t know how the camera systems are modeled though.

http://www.glowingheat.co.uk/A-12.html

[harrybasset]

Didn't the Aeroplane Heaven F9F-5P have viewfinder in the cockpit? I don't know if it survived the various upgrades.

[awstub]

I did it for 6 years in OV-1 Mohawks. IR, Photo, and SLAR. 1968-74. The pilot was the driver and I was the systems operator (TO).

The B model used the KA-76 camera internal belly mounted with 5 positions, L & R oblique w/2 positions 15 and 30 degrees, and 90 degrees vertical. Photo flare pod mounted atop the port wing along the wing root aft. Flare pod held 104 KA-30 (?) aerial photo flares but we never loaded that many. These flares where parachute flares and turned night into day at low altitude, blinded the pilot (and me too!) and also lit up the aircraft!

The C model carried both the KA-76 belly camera and the KA-60 panoramic nose camera. The 60 could shot a 180 degree pan exposure on wide format color film. The detail was incredible. The C used a Photo strobe pod mounted on the port outboard pylon outboard of the wing tank. The flare pod had unlimited flashes, coordinated one per frame, didn't affect the pilots vision and only lit up the aircraft for less than 1 second.

The camera controls were coordinated with aircraft ground speed and AGL. Flares and strobes were also coordinated through the camera control system once the frame rate was established. The controls allowed automatic exposures or singles all controlled by the TO. Usually a photo tech met the aircraft at the parking stand and retrieved the cassettes to take to the photo trailer. Once the film was developed the aircraft crew would debrief with intel with light tables and vertical stereo viewers. The exposures were automatically set to provide overlapping frames for stero/3D analysis.

Steve

Duckie, do you happen to remember what altitudes and air speeds you guys typically flew at whn taking pictures?

[FlyingsCool]

Thanks guys, I'll check these out.

And I'd love to know more.

[Duckie]

Duckie, do you happen to remember what altitudes and air speeds you guys typically flew at whn taking pictures?

Our mission and systems were designed for low altitude interdiction and the kind of targets we were looking for were usually very hard to find or see at higher altitudes. We were usually at or below 2K AGL, and 210kts. We did do route reccons and area searches which took us higher but our specs kept us below 10K max. The KA-76 was also used by the USAF and the USN and had a max altitude of 40 or 50K IIRC and obviously RF-4s and RF-8's were a bit quicker! But then they were looking for other "stuff."

Steve

[awstub]

Our mission and systems were designed for low altitude interdiction and the kind of targets we were looking for were usually very hard to find or see at higher altitudes. We were usually at or below 2K AGL, and 210kts. We did do route reccons and area searches which took us higher but our specs kept us below 10K max. The KA-76 was also used by the USAF and the USN and had a max altitude of 40 or 50K IIRC and obviously RF-4s and RF-8's were a bit quicker! But then they were looking for other "stuff."

Steve

Great info, thanks.
I'm trying to set up realistic missions along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos using FSX@War and FSCAI.
The Mohawk's 2nd engine comes in very handy when the AI gunners hose down the airplane.

[delta_lima]

Great info, thanks.
I'm trying to set up realistic missions along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos using FSX@War and FSCAI.
The Mohawk's 2nd engine comes in very handy when the AI gunners hose down the airplane.

I'm very keen on this. I'm a big fan of the any recce aircraft, and with the imminent updated version of the rebooted AS FSX / P3D F-4, will put the RF-4 to good use. And I should check and see if the FSX converted AS native RF-101 works in P3Dv4.5 - am hoping so.

It's such a pity Massimo Altieri never finished his RA-5C: https://digilander.libero.it/max_alt...lane_RA5c.html

That said, an RFN RF-8G would be like winning the lottery ....

Let us know of this project - sounds very interesting.